Discussion Feed

Question What is the best way to setup Alerts for App Agent Status and Machine Agent Status.     When the Agent is turned off  the Agent Status stops reporting any values so what is the best approach for setting up a Health Rule?    Answer Solution 1 The machine agent posts a metric you can use:   Application Infrastructure Performance|FrontEnd|Agent| Machine|Availability   Solution 2 You can also use the App Agent Status for app agent availability. But note in addition to the app pool recycles that take place by default every 29 hours, there is also an app pool idle time out that occurs if there’s no traffic on the app after 20 minutes. If that idle occurs, then the agent will be unloaded will no longer report and trigger this alert and look like a false alert (App|Availability = 0). You can address this by turning that setting off by setting timeout value to 0.     You can read about this here under the section Idle Time Out. ... View more

Issue Java agent is unable to connect to the controller due to a certificate chaining error. This might be seen with IBM WebSphere.    Errors similar to the following:   [AD Thread Pool-Global0] 10 Jun 2015 20:12:52,848 WARN XMLConfigManager - Certificate chain validation failed com.ibm.jsse2.util.j: PKIX path building failed: java.security.cert.CertPathBuilderException: PKIXCertPathBuilderImpl could not build a valid CertPath.; internal cause is: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: The certificate issued by CN=DigiCert Global Root CA, OU= www.digicert.com<http://www.digicert.com >, O=DigiCert Inc, C=US is not trusted; internal cause is: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Certificate chaining error attempting validation. [AD Thread Pool-Global0] 10 Jun 2015 20:12:52,849 ERROR ConfigurationChannel - Fatal transport error: com.ibm.jsse2.util.j: PKIX path building failed: java.security.cert.CertPathBuilderException: PKIXCertPathBuilderImpl could not build a valid CertPath.; internal cause is: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: The certificate issued by CN=DigiCert Global Root CA, OU= www.digicert.com<http://www.digicert.com >, O=DigiCert Inc, C=US is not trusted; internal cause is: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Certificate chaining error [AD Thread Pool-Global0] 10 Jun 2015 20:12:52,849 WARN ConfigurationChannel - Could not connect to the controller/invalid response from controller, cannot get initialization information, controller host [stelo.saas.appdynamics.com< http://stelo.saas.appdynamics.com> ], port[443], exception [Fatal transport error: com.ibm.jsse2.util.j: PKIX path building failed: java.security.cert.CertPathBuilderException: PKIXCertPathBuilderImpl could not build a valid CertPath.; internal cause is: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: The certificate issued by CN=DigiCert Global Root CA, OU= www.digicert.com<http://www.digicert.com >, O=DigiCert Inc, C=US is not trusted; internal cause is: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Certificate chaining error]   Solution   The java agent is using the IBM JVM's jre/lib/security/cacerts file to validate the controller's certificate. There are two ways to solve this problem: 1.) Use keytool to import the root of your controller's certificate chain, (the FTB CA's root cert), into jre/lib/security/cacerts 2.) Start your application with following JVM arguments: -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=/path/to/FTB_custom_trustStore.jks -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=somepassword and make sure FTB_custom_trustStore.jks contains the FTB Certificate Authority root cert.   ... View more

Question Does the  JavaScript agent for EUM (adrum.js) always need to be placed in the header of the web page? Won't this potentially cause latency and load delays in loading the web page?   Answer Our Engineering team has gone to great lengths to ensure that the initial adrum.js is very lightweight.    Additionally, the loading of adrum.js is synchronous and minimal filesize to prevent page loading interruptions.  It calls out to the extension script, adrum-ext.js, asynchronously to allow rest of the page to load.   For most modern browsers, it does not matter where you copy adrum.js file on the page because they support navigation timing, which is what we use for the timings. So loading in the body for them is ok.   If you care about accurate timing for older browsers, mostly older IE and Safari, then you need to load the tag as early possible so the fall back timer can be started.    Using the adrum-start-time property gets us around the timing issues with older browsers. Place this JS snippet in the page's <head> and then place adrum.js at the bottom like so window["adrum-start-time"] = new Date().getTime(); More code examples here.   IE browsers tips: adrum.js loading placement in relation to <meta> tags definitely impacts pre-IE 9 browsers, therefore the recommended location for adrum.js is AFTER any <meta> tags With older browsers, load adrum.js as early as possible to avoid missing resource timing data Intranet settings in IE can prevent the JS agent from functioning properly   Browsers that support the navigation timing API can be found here: Browser Support for Navigation Timing API.   ... View more

Symptoms While trying to enable the End User Experience in the Controller, it returns an error similar to the following:   EUM license usage retrieval failed (Error fetching license usage information [org.apache.http.conn.HttpHostConnectException     For example, in an environment using the AppDynamics SaaS EUM the full error might read: EUM license usage retrieval failed (Error fetching license usage information [org.apache.http.conn.HttpHostConnectException: Connect to agg.eum-appdynamics.com:443 [agg.eum-appdynamics.com/52.10.146.82, agg.eum-appdynamics.com/54.186.213.46, agg.eum-appdynamics.com/54.148.146.12, agg.eum-appdynamics.com/54.191.252.35, agg.eum-appdynamics.com/54.213.8.211, agg.eum-appdynamics.com/54.69.27.161] failed: Connection refused while calling 'https://agg.eum-appdynamics.com/eumaggregator/licenseUsage'] )   Diagnosis To use EUM, you must have port 443 open on the Controller machine so the Controller can access the EUM cloud to collect EUM metrics. The EUM cloud can be the AppDynamics Cloud or your own if you have set up an on-premise EUM Server.   For EUM in AppDynamics Cloud Environment The Controller needs to access agg.eum-appdynamics.com through internet using HTTP over SSL on port :443.   For On-Premises EUM the URL agg.eum-appdynamics.com will be different, but the issue is the same. Make sure port 443 is open.   Solution Confirm that port 443 is open and is not blocked by a firewall.   If you have a proxy in between the Controller and your EUM cloud, configure the proxy as described in the following doc: Configure On-Prem Controller HTTP Proxy Settings.   Related documenation: Install and+Configure the On-Premise EUM Server. ... View more

  Use Case Description Using the flight search sample application, this example shows the use of the validation configuration. Prior to applying the custom correlation configuration with validation, the flow map shows the following.   Flow Map Without Correlation     Flow Map With Correlation and Validation Providing custom correlation configuration along with validation that specifies correlation for the requests for United Airlines searches, indicated by the value "UA232" in the getter chain configuration, we get the following flow map.     The validator configuration is specified in the validator-config element in addition to the standard producer and consumer XML shown in other examples. This XML snippet just shows the validator-config for this example. Place this element and its associated attributes and child elements inside the <intrumentation> element of your producer or consumer XML.   Validation XML Example Consumer XML configuration for custom-activity-correlation.xml <instrumentation> ... <validator-config> <validator class-match-type="MATCHES_CLASS" match-pattern="java.util.HashMap"> <data-match-config> <data-gatherer-type>POSITION</data-gatherer-type> <position>0</position> <getter-chain>this</getter-chain> <transformer-type>GETTER_METHODS</transformer-type> </data-match-config> </validator> <!-- no data match conditions with a class match validation --> <validator match-type="NOT_EMPTY"> <data-match-config> <data-gatherer-type>POSITION</data-gatherer-type> <position>0</position> <getter-chain>get(object/UA232)</getter-chain> <transformer-type>GETTER_METHODS</transformer-type> </data-match-config> </validator> </validator-config> </instrumentation> ... View more

Use Case Description Company A has a Global Distribution System (GDS) which has a custom protocol called Protocol A (a request/reply style protocol). Their subsidiary, a travel website, would like to monitor their application with AppDyamics Pro. Java Agents will be installed on the GDS and the travel site Web Servers. They would like to the correlation across these systems.   Each message sent from client and server is wrapped in a  CompanyA Messge instance.  Company A has agreed to add a correlation key member to this class for correlation.   Correlation Example This example covers the following scenarios: producer type - the correlation method and exit point are the same. consumer type - the correlation header read is inside the continuing transaction (nested case). In this example the readData() method is measured as part of the continuing transaction.   Producer Payload public class FlightStatusMessage implements Serializable { private Map<String,String> requests = new ConcurrentHashMap<String, String>(); private Map responses = new ConcurrentHashMap(); private String correlationKey = null; private String airline;   Producer Code Call is issued as usual to request the flight status information. private void handleUSAirways(String airline, HttpServletRequest request) throws IOException { Map<String, String> flights = new HashMap<String, String>(); int flightCount = Integer.parseInt(request.getParameter("flightCount")); for (int i = 1; i <= flightCount; i++) { String flightNo = airline + request.getParameter("flight" + i); flights.put(flightNo, flightNo); } if (flights.size() > 0) { FlightStatusMessage message = new FlightStatusMessage(flights); message.setAirline("US"); FlightStatusMessage response = queryForStatusWithPayload(message); request.setAttribute("results", response.getResponses()); } }   Producer XML Configuration <!-- This creates a custom exit and does outgoing correlation downstream. On the consuming side the header is read and a transaction is begun at the same point. --> <activities> <producer> <!-- This is where a custom exit point is defined --> <instrumentation> <class-name>com.appdynamics.samples.FlightSearch</class-name> <method-name>queryForStatusWithPayload</method-name> <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type> </instrumentation> <!-- The following identifier config is used to name the custom exit point. This is similar to how we name custom exit points from the Controller Console --> <identifiers> <identifier name="USAirwaysSearch"> <data-gatherer-type>INVOKED</data-gatherer-type> <getter-chain>this</getter-chain> <user-defined-name>USAirwaysSearch</user-defined-name> <transformer-type>USER_DEFINED_NAME</transformer-type> </identifier> </identifiers> <!-- The following correlationn element is where and how to add the correlation metadata --> <correlation> <!-- This is where we apply instrumentation to get hold of the outgoing payload --> <instrumentation> <class-name>com.appdynamics.samples.FlightSearch</class-name> <method-name>queryForStatusWithPayload</method-name> <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type> </instrumentation> <!-- This is how we grab the payload at the instrumentation point defined above --> <payload-pointer> <data-gatherer-type>POSITION</data-gatherer-type> <position>0</position> <getter-chain>this</getter-chain> <transformer-type>GETTER_METHODS</transformer-type> </payload-pointer> <!-- This is how we add the correlation metadata to the payload --> <payload-operation> <access-type>method</access-type> <access-method>setCorrelationKey</access-method> <param-types>java.lang.String</param-types> </payload-operation> </correlation> </producer> </activities>   Consumer code snippet public void run() { Object payload = readRequest(client); Object response = null; if (payload instanceof FlightStatusMessage) { FlightStatusMessage messagePayload = (FlightStatusMessage)payload; if ("BA".equals(messagePayload.getAirline())) { messagePayload.setResponses(processMessage(messagePayload)); response = messagePayload; } else if ("US".equals(messagePayload.getAirline())) { messagePayload = readData(payload); messagePayload.setResponses(processMessage(messagePayload)); response = messagePayload; } } else if (payload instanceof Map) { response = processRequest((HashMap)payload); } logger.info("request processed"); writeRepsonse(client, response); logger.info("response written"); }   Consumer XML Configuration <!-- This creates a custom exit and does outgoing correlation downstream. On the consuming side the header is read and a transaction is begin at the same point. --> <activities> <!-- The activity-demarcator="true" specifies that the instrumentation element defines the boundary of the continuing transaction and that the correlation header is read inside of this method. Note: that the transaction begins only if a correlation header is read --> <consumer activity-demarcator="true"> <!-- This is the boundary of the continuing transaction and also encloses the point where correlation metadata is read --> <instrumentation> <class-name>com.appdynamics.samples.FlightSearchHandler</class-name> <method-name>run</method-name> <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type> </instrumentation> <correlation> <!-- This is where instrumentation to get payload bearing correlation metadata. This instrumentation point is inside of transaction boundary specified above --> <instrumentation> <class-name>com.appdynamics.samples.FlightSearchHandler</class-name> <method-name>readData</method-name> <match-type>MATCHES_CLASS</match-type> </instrumentation> <!-- How to get payload ? --> <payload-pointer> <data-gatherer-type>RETURN</data-gatherer-type> <getter-chain>this</getter-chain> <transformer-type>GETTER_METHODS</transformer-type> </payload-pointer> <!-- How to extract correlation metadata from payload --> <payload-operation> <access-type>method</access-type> <access-method>getCorrelationKey</access-method> </payload-operation> </correlation> </consumer> </activities> ... View more